Despite Modi not putting up a single Muslim candidate, BJP won over 60 per cent of these seats

Despite Modi not putting up a single Muslim candidate, BJP won over 60 per cent of these seats

Women and youth rallied behind their icon as Narendra Modi outpaced his rivals through a hi-tech campaign and fiery speeches.

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UDAY MAHURKAR

November 30, 1999

ISSUE DATE: December 31, 2012

UPDATED: December 27, 2012 13:59 IST

BJP workers in Ahmedabad celebrate Modi's third consecutive victory

Narendra Damodardas Modi excelled himself with a performance that sent his rivals to the realm of near irrelevance. This electoral hat-trick puts India's most effective master of mass politics in the front row of national politics. Soon after the results, the mood at the state BJP headquarters said it all. 'Hit and fit for PM' read one placard held by a Modi supporter donning the Chief Minister's mask. Another read: 'Nafrat ki rajneeti chodo, vikas ki rajneeti karo (Leave politics of hate, do politics of development)'. The transformation of Modi from Hindutva icon to development guru that began with his 2007 win is now complete.

Going beyond the fact that the youth and women voted for their hero in large numbers as indicated by the record 70 per cent-plus polling, the delivery of Modi's pro-poor schemes played a very big role as marginalised groups like the Kolis veered towards BJP in big numbers and more than offset the odd losses caused by the Leuva Patel vote going to Keshubhai Patel's Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP). The impact of many of Modi's pro-poor schemes-such as free medical treatment to students-is visible in the verdict. Under the scheme, as many as 1,200 poor school children underwent heart surgery in 2011-2012 at the state government's expense.

The other big pro-poor scheme that made an impact was the Garib Kalyan Mela, also dubbed "middlemen removal mela", in which ministers or high-ranking officers held functions where government aid for Below Poverty Line (bpl) families was handed over directly to the beneficiaries. Modi organised 1,000 such melas in the past three years and distributed aid worth Rs 15,000 crore among BPL families.

The most gratifying thing for BJP in this election was its performance in 24 seats where Muslims constitute a significant vote bank. Despite Modi not putting up a single Muslim candidate, BJP won over 60 per cent of these seats. In many areas in Kutch, Navsari and Baroda and Bharuch districts, 25-40 per cent Muslims voted for BJP on the issue of development, thus bolstering Modi's plank of 'Development without discrimination'. As the BJP Minority Morcha President Mehboobali Bavasahib put it, "More Muslims voted for BJP than expected." The Congress gained two seats over its 2007 tally of 59 but both state Congress chief Arjun Modhwadia and Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil lost. BJP's biggest casualty was state unit president R.C. Faldu who lost.

Says journalist and documentary maker Mayank Jain, who has made films on Modi's development schemes: "In both long-term and short-term poll strategy, Modi beat Congress hands down. His 2012 poll campaign began the very day he launched the Garib Kalyan Melas in 2009." The Congress also saw Modi's district-wise Sadbhavana fasts as his plan to attract Muslim votes and reacted by launching counter "Satkarma" fasts. But Modi was actually using the fasts to make his national image more inclusive in the wake of the clean chit he had just got from the Special Investigation Team probing the 2002 Gujarat riots. He was also using the programme to gear up his district-level machinery and renew his old BJP and RSS contacts.

How he conducted the Sadbhavana fast in each district gives an idea. After the Sadbhavana fast ended at 5.50 p.m., Modi first held a meeting of district officials to plug loopholes in local governance and followed it with a meeting of key district BJP workers. The Chief Minister was always armed with relevant data on the district when he attended these meetings. While the Congress and the media were debating the famous "Muslim skull cap" incident in a Sadbhavana fast in Ahmedabad on September 18, 2011, Modi was actually preparing for the polls a year later.

The Congress campaign was trying to play catch-up with Modi while the Chief Minister had plainly told his ad managers and strategists that he and the party shouldn't appear reactive. Even when he felt the need to react, he didn't do it immediately but chose his time. When Congress announced the Ghar Nu Ghar (Own Your House) scheme in August, promising to build low-cost houses for poor people, he didn't react but made the same promise in his manifesto a mere fortnight before polls.

As early as last year, Modi ordered a private survey involving a US-educated sociologist amid reports that his government was facing anti-incumbency. The outcome didn't exactly reveal anti-incumbency but did indicate that there was an overdose of Modi self-promotion in the public domain and that in certain quarters he was seen as too "urban and corporate". This was due to the hype created by the 'Vibrant Gujarat' campaign as well as the Congress campaign labelling his government as that of "crorepatis". Modi took corrective steps in January, skipping corporate events in favour of programmes at the grassroots level. Posters and hoardings of the Chief Minister also came down significantly, the Opposition oblivious to all of this.

The Congress started a high-profile public campaign against Modi as early as mid-2011, including a series of programmes such as 'Hisab Do, Jawab Do (Give Account, Give Reply) attacking him on issues of corruption and poor governance. Early this year, the party organised the Sardar Sandesh Yatra and a Kinara Bachao Yatra for coastal areas in July. But it became a case of beginning early and ending early for the Congress. The party had exhausted its ammunition when Modi launched the Vivekanand Yuva Vikas Yatra on September 11 to spread his message of development.

Within a month in which he toured 150 constituencies and addressed 100-odd public meetings, Modi had wiped out the impact of the Congress campaign. Like in the Sadbhavana mission, he also used the yatra to gauge the public image of his sitting MLAs. This helped him in his decision to repeat a majority of the sitting MLAs. As political analyst Vidyut Thakar puts it: "When the Congress poll campaign began in full swing in December, Modi was in his second round of campaigning-having finished the first round in the form of the Vivekanand Yuva Vikas Yatra."

Modi's campaign focus was not so different in the final round than during the yatra when he took the Congress head-on over corruption at the Centre and appealed to the voters not to hand over Gujarat to such "plunderers". He kept the Congress on defensive mode, changing gears at short notice and giving it back to "Soniaben" and "Rahul baba" when they fired at him. When Sonia began her campaign from pilgrimage sites Dakor and Sidhpur on December 10, the Chief Minister was quick on the draw: "Congress thinks it can wash away its sins by starting the campaign from holy places but rest assured, the people of Gujarat are already decided on uprooting it from the state."

When Rahul called Mahatma Gandhi his "ideological guru" at a public meeting at Bhiloda, Modi was quick to respond at a rally in central Gujarat: "Rahul baba, if Gandhiji is your guru then you must also remember the last advice of Bapu to Congressmen-dissolve the Congress party."

In the end, the one-man demolition squad of Modi was all it took to shatter the Congress hope.

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